So, yes, it has happened. I'm a mommy!! :) YAY!! On Monday we went to our last dr appt and decided that on Thursday (the 8th) that we were going to start inducing me because nothing had changed and I was just basically done. However, since I had relaxed and knew that there was in fact an actual light bulb (instead of just a glimmer of light) at the end of the proverbial tunnel, little miss decided that she was ready to come on Wednesday morning. I woke up at 1AM and started having regular contractions from the get-go. I woke Matt up around 1:45 after I'd had around 6 contractions just to let him know that I thought something was beginning. So we waited another hour to see what was going on because the nurse told me that after having 5 contractions an hour for two hours in a row that it was time to come in. At 3 AM we called the hospital just to see what they suggested and the labor nurse we talked to said to come in when I felt uncomfortable. HELLO?!?!? Uncomfortable? How are contractions comfortable?? Silly lady. So we waited and they were getting closer together (they'd started out being between 3 and 8 minutes apart and when we left they were between 3 and 5 minutes apart).
We left for the hospital and got there around 6 am, got checked in and went up to my loverly delivery room. The monitors they put on your belly to check baby's heartbeat and to monitor the contractions are so uncomfortable. They are tight on the part of your body that you want NOTHING tight on. Dr Tedesco (my dr) showed up around 6:30 and checked me out, was only around 1 cm dilated so we just were starting the wonderful waiting game. Around 9:30 he came back in and decided to break my water to see if that would speed things up since nothing had changed. That didn't hurt or anything, but just feels weird!!! At noon, nothing had changed. I was getting frustrated and still in pain (coz even if nothing's changed, you still have contractions :( ) so they started me on Stadol (sp?) a pain med that made me loopy and pitocin (the medicine they use for inducements) to see if that could jump start anything. Nope, nothing still at 4 PM, so my dr decided that it was time for the epidural because I was biting pillows and almost crying I was in so much pain. The contractions were coming in bunches of 3 or 4 at a time and were getting more intense as time wore on. So once the epi took control (ahhh... the wonders of medicine) and I relaxed because I couldn't feel much they added even more pitocin to speed things up *hopefully*. But alas, at 7:30 when the nurse checked me out, I was
barely 3 cm and she could feel something next to the head. She thought it was the baby's hand on top of her head so she went and got the dr to double check and nope, not a hand... it was her face. She was in a position called face presentation. As the day had worn on, she flipped to a posterior position then back to normal but when she was being pushed down the birth canal, her head decided that instead of tucking down like it was supposed to, her face would come forward, making it look like she wanted to kiss the world first. (she was nose/face first instead of the back of her head). This was the reason nothing was happening. You need to have the back of the baby's head pushing to make dilation happen and because it was her soft face instead of her hard head, I wasn't changing. And if we would have kept on that track, it could have possibly broken her neck or caused her spine to extend too far, so an emergency c-section was ordered.
In about 15 minutes I was wheeled into the operating room and had a baby about 10 minutes later. Born at 8:04 PM, she weighed 6lbs 14oz and was 18 inches long. Mackenzie Joanne Hecht, welcome to the world! I didn't hear her cry for a while (seemed like forever to me, but in actuality was more like 10 seconds) and when I did, I just started bawling. I have a baby, I thought. She is finally here, I'm a mother, and wow, I haven't felt this much love for anything or anyone before. It was more intense than my wedding day. So many emotions, all amazing ones at that as well.
I was in the hospital from 6am Wednesday until around 8 Friday night. We could have stayed another night, but I was feeling good and Mackenzie was doing wonderful and we all just wanted to be home, in our own beds. She slept okay that first night, or so we thought. From around 12 to 2 AM she was up every 15 mins or so wanting to be fed or changed or just because her passifier had fallen out of her mouth (we're using one to work on her sucking reflexes because I'm not breastfeeding this will help them to develop like they are supposed to-I didn't want to use one, but alas, things change!) or her hat had fallen over her eyes and she didn't like that. The next night she did the same thing, only it went on until almost 6am. However, luckily we have my fabulous mother here who took over Mack-watch :) halfway through the night so Matt and I could sleep. Last night was amazing. We realized that we hadn't been trying to keep her up during the day enough so at night she wanted to play. So we kept her up for as long as we could when she was awake and then at night she slept so much better. Woke up at 2 to feed and get a change and then not again until almost 7. Ahhhh.... soooo nice to get almost a whole night's worth of sleep only 3 days out of the hospital!!
Well, she's bout due for a feeding now, so I'm going to go feed my beautiful baby. Boy, motherhood is amazing.
Ready for our first trip to church since she was born, isn't she just the cutest??
Ready for our first trip to church since she was born, isn't she just the cutest??
With Daddy at the Christmas party, we make silly faces at eachother :)
Who is this weird hairy man holding me? But aren't I cute posing??
